


Playground Rules

by missus_e



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2517680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missus_e/pseuds/missus_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know mate, I haven't seen anyone try this hard to get someone's attention since I was a thirteen year old boy trying to get to second base with my neighbor."</p><p>If you think Jemma Simmons is just going to let her best friend get away, you'd be wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playground Rules

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have some angst-fluff.

She's sitting on the bed of her bunk, legs hugged tightly to her chest as she tries not to drown in a situation of her own making.

She'd gone over it a million times before she'd returned. "Fitz, the reason I left was because it was the best thing to do."

"Because I wasn't helping you get any better."

"Because it's my fault you're like this."

"Because I was angry at you for putting me in this situation."

"Because you're my best friend in the world and I love you more than anything."

She hugs her legs tighter to her chest. Really, how on earth could he think she left because she thought he was useless? What kind of friendship did they have if he thought that?

She knows the kind of friendship they had. They would finish each other's sentences but never know what the other was thinking. They would work together to advance humanity through science, but never once think about their future together. They would die for each other, but never talk about it. It was wonderful and beautiful, but flawed.

Well so was everything else, she thinks bitterly. That was the whole point wasn't it? To see the things that were good and use them to work past the problems?

She'd known he would be alright without her. Leo Fitz was resilient, brilliant, resourceful. He could overcome anything, but for the first time since she'd met him, she wasn't helping him.

So she left. She left to save him, and to save herself. Now she was going to lose him.

As she sits in her room, staring vacantly at the lamp by her bed and letting the tears fall freely, she thinks about that day. He'd told her he'd changed, and she could see that.

But she's changed too.

She'd faced villains, madmen, the silence of an empty apartment day after day, and she'd returned home in victory.

After all of that, she'll be damned if she's going to lose her best friend.

\-----

It starts with only one. A tiny little yellow post-it note on his tool kit, stuck in place by a blue monkey sticker. 

"If Iron Man and Silver Surfer team up, they would be alloys."

He snatches it from the kit and throws it in the bin.

The next day there are three of them, each one with multi-colored dancing monkeys holding them in place. 

"The tip of a miniature spider monkey's tail can hold the weight of it's whole body."  
"NaC1/NaOH"  
"Insider tip: today they're serving tacos for lunch. Leave early if you want to get the good salsa."

By the end of the week every surface on his workspace is covered with the things.

"I certainly have developed a sense of humor." Jemma looks over his shoulder, reaching out to read one of the notes. She never quite touches it though. "Must be a new development in my bad-girl personality. First layers, now puns. I quite like it."

He watches her: her perfect long, straight hair, her colorful sweater that is forever burned into his memory. Nothing like the girl across the lab who's watching him out of the corner of her eyes.

"She doesn't even like puns," he mutters as he begins to clear his desk.  
\-----

The tea comes next. Every day a different blend, still hot by the time he gets to his workstation in the morning. There's a label next to the mug, asking him politely to rate the "Quali-Tea" on a scale of 1-5. 

She doesn't even know if he's drinking any of it until she catches him still slurping at a cup one morning. 

"Any good?" she asks nonchalantly. 

He shrugs. "Not really."

She tosses the box that night. 

\--------

He hasn't worn a tie in ages, so he doesn't notice they've even gone missing until he finds one hanging on his door-knob. It's been pressed and tied in a classic Windsor knot.

"Oh look!" Jemma says, pointing to the open wardrobe he just noticed. "She's tied all of them and hung them up according to color. How sweet."  

He closes the door to his room carefully. "Why are you still here?" he asks in a low voice. Never know who's listening, even in his own room.

She looks at him from across the room. "You know why."

The next day he's not wearing any of the ties, and Simmons tries not to let the disappointment distract her.  
\-----

"This seems like an awful lot of work," Bobbi says to her one evening while she scours the Internet for more bad puns. "He's still not talking to you?"

"Oh he talks," she responds. "Just never to me. When he does have to speak to me-"

"It's like he's talking around you." The older woman nods. "Been there before."

"What happened?"

She gives her a sympathetic look. "You're watching it right now."

Simmons bites her lip. "He's my best friend."

"I know. That's why I think it's time for you to step it up."

Jemma looks at the woman like she's just asked her to run in the Olympics. "How?"

Bobbi shrugs. "Playground rules. Can't beat em: annoy them."

\--------

She enlists Mack's help with much less difficulty than she imagined. 

"You must really care about him if you're willing to do all this," he states.

She smiles shyly at the man who's been studying her with a critical eye ever since she returned. "That's the point."

\--------

It starts small. 

"Mack, have you, uh-" Fitz starts, making vague gestures with his hands. "My phone."

The big man gestures to the counter behind him. "Right over there," he says, and it mystifies Fitz because why would it be there, it was just in his pocket, he swears-

He nearly jumps out of his skin later when it starts ringing.

_So get up, get up, get out of my head, and fall into my arms instead-_

That is most definitely not his ring-tone.

_I don't, I don't, I don't know what it is, but I need that one thing-_

But goddamnit he can't turn it off because his hands won't cooperate-

_You've got that one th-_

"Hello?" he barks into the mobile. 

"Fitz, can you help me with these configurations? I can't quite figure them out."

He looks over to see the woman behind the cheerful voice smiling at him from across the lab. She gives him a little wave. He scowls. 

"How the hell-"

"Change your tone?" Simmons asks innocently. "No idea what you mean."

It's when he hears Mack snickering at his station that he understands. He puts the phone back in his pocket and glares at the man next to him. "What happened to moving on?" he asks under his breath. 

The big man shrugs. "Seems to me like she's gonna chase after you no matter how far you move."

Fitz crosses his arms across his chest and sulks over to Simmon's workspace. 

\--------

"Simmons, where are my tools?"

She looks up from her microscope. "Your tools?"

Fitz is glaring at her while every other scientist in the room watches with poorly concealed interest. "These-" he snaps, shoving a brightly colored child's plastic tool kit towards her, "are not mine."

"No," she responds slowly. "I believe those belong to Tripp's nephew Charlie." 

"Where are my tools Simmons?" he repeats the question, but the heat in his words has cooled off a little. 

She smiles at him brightly. "I think I saw Mack using them in the lounge," she says calmly, before bending over and procuring a single screw-driver. "You may need this."

When he goes to the lounge he finds a bright yellow note on the vent in the ceiling, with a smiley face next to the words "Open me." 

Lance watches from the couch as Fitz pulls a chair under the vent and begins working. "You know mate," the mercenary says. "I haven't seen anyone try this hard to get someone's attention since I was a thirteen year old boy trying to get to second base with my neighbor."

"Don't talk," Fitz says, concentrating on how his hands are supposed to work. Slow and steady wins the race-

"Tina I think. You should have seen the way her sweaters fit-"

"Hunter, shut up."

It takes him a whole ten minutes, but he gets his kit and even puts the vent back on. And as much as he sulks for the rest of the day, it's nice to know the physical therapy is working. 

\-------

She's in the kitchen brewing tea at 7:35 AM when he comes in. Apparently she didn't hear him because when she turns around she jumps and drops the mug on the floor. 

"Shit!"

"Fitz!"

"So sorry, so sorry-" He bends over to pick up the pieces but she stops him. "Here, I- I-"

"It's alright Fitz, I've got it. Look, your hands are shaking already." The comment would have hurt a few months ago, but he realizes it's the first time she's outright acknowledged his disability.

He stands up to grab the paper towels and hovers over her awkwardly while she fumbles with the glass pieces. Why is she having such a hard time picking them up? Are her hands shaking?

"Simmons?"

"It's alright Fitz, you just startled me," she says, gingerly moving the pieces to the bin. He mops up the spilt tea, despite her protests, and helps retrieve a new mug from the cabinet. "Thank you," she murmurs when he hands it to her, her hands still tremoring slightly. 

And suddenly it occurs to Fitz that despite the pranking, the cheerful notes, the asinine notion he had that she was dealing with all of this better than he was, that she was okay-

She is most decidedly not okay.

He looks over her shoulder, thinking that maybe there will be some kind of mirror Jemma there to confirm his suspicions, but there's nothing. He knows he's been the biggest ass in the world.

"Simmons..."

The look they share lasts a moment too long. She's waiting for him to walk away, just like he has for the last month and a half, when she notices something different. "Ah! You're wearing a tie today!"

He glances down at the dark blue tie and adjusts it nervously. "Yeah. Finally got the hang of the uh- the uh-" he points towards his throat. She understands instantly. 

"You couldn't wear ties because of the top button?"

"Yeah, but today I got it." He allows himself one proud smirk that makes her feel like dancing. It's the first time he's smiled with her in months.

"You could have just asked me-"

"No," he says a little too abruptly, but he immediately adjusts his tone to something less confrontational. "I uh, I wanted to, to do it myself." 

"Oh, of course."

"But the ties were helpful, thank you."

"Good, I'm glad." 

He turns his attention from her to the coffee mug handles. "So, uh, what was that tea?" he asks, not looking up at her. "Last Thursday."

"The herbal breakfast mix?"

"Think so."

"Did you like it?"

"Yeah. It was good. Closest to the real thing."

"I'll make sure May puts it on the grocery list."

"Yeah thanks. And I'll uh, I'll make it tomorrow. The tea. Yours."

He keeps glancing at her, her hands, her feet, everywhere but her face. The fact that they're here makes her happier than she's been in months, but she knows something still isn't right.

Just like that, she's angry at herself, because she's about to undo all of the hard work she just put in. 

"I'm not taking any of it back," she says firmly. 

It wasn't a loud sentence, but it rings around the room like a gong, and if he was avoiding looking at her before, well now she has his full attention. 

"We both know I wasn't helping you. I kept doing things for you, and you kept resenting it, and that's why I left. I don't take that back." He's about to interrupt her but she barrels on. "I don't regret saving you. I will never regret that, never ever in my life will I regret that. And I don't take back what I said in the pod." She looks him square in the eyes, dares him to look away. "You are my best friend in the world Fitz. Then and now." 

Seconds crawl by. She hasn't been this terrified since the first night she came back, but then she catches the corners of his mouth curling up. 

"Yeah," he says. "I kind of figured that last part out. Who else would put up with me?"

Her stomach twists. "That's not what I-"

"I was just kidding Jemma," he says softly. "I know, alright? I know." He rubs the back of his neck, laughs down at his shoes. "I mean really though, One Direction? Could you have not-"

But she cuts him off with a tight hug, the hug she needed when she returned all those weeks ago but never got. He hugs her back, hesitantly at first, but just as tightly.

"We're not done talking, right?" she asks.

His laugh rumbles through her, but she can hear the shaking of his voice. "Not even close."

She smiles and buries her face into his shoulder.

\--------

Jemma Simmons has lost a lot of things in the past year. Her job, her identity, her sense of safety and well-being.

But she didn't lose her best friend, and that makes up for all the rest.


End file.
